Binky Baloo, Patches, and Mr Twinkles
by onemediumdrip
Summary: Four words chased Sam into the void, words spoken from the mouth of a child that tightened the ball of panic in Sam’s chest. “Look, Mom! A clown!” Set whenever in S1.


A/N: This is just a lovely little piece of ridiculousness that popped into my head during Psychology lecture. If you're looking for an actual plot, turn back now. You have been warned!

Sam was lost.

Like, literally lost. As in, he had absolutely no idea where the hell he was. After wandering around the town (it's not even that big!), Sam's usually excellent sense of direction was failing him big time.

Probably didn't help that he had a blinding headache, and it was taking all of his energy to remain standing.

Of course, Sam could call Dean, but his brother was… otherwise engaged. As far as Sam knew, that is. Who knew how much time had passed since Dean's hurried phone call that went something like, "Dude, don't come back to the room for a little while, okay?" accompanied by a high-pitched giggle in the background.

_Oh, don't worry, Dean. I wouldn't be able to find my way to the motel even if I wanted to._

Sam's been hunting again for a couple months now, but this was the first time he'd actually gotten _lost_ in some random town. Usually he was with Dean, or if he wasn't, Dean was able to come pick him up. But this time, Sam's on his own, and he felt like he was all of seven years old, staring around at all the scary buildings and not having a clue where he was.

He had been at the library, researching the town's history (coming up with basically nothing), and he couldn't for the life of him remember if he'd turned left or right when he'd left the building. The pain in his head was in the forefront, and since Sam was concentrating so hard on not hurling, he quickly lost track of where he was walking.

Once Sam came to this realization, he spun around in every direction, hoping to find something he recognized from his brief stay in the area. He came up with nothing. All he found was the carnival going on at the lot down the street.

The very thought of being among the screaming kids, yelling parents, and loud music sent a vicious jolt of agony through Sam's brain. Dare he risk disturbing Dean while he was, ahem, _busy_, or should he suck it up and ask someone at the carnival for help?

Sam would rather not risk coming between Dean and what he's sure is his brother's true love, so he took a deep breath and began his walk to the carnival, trying to ignore the feeling that he's walking to his own funeral.

The pounding in his head only increased as the sounds of the joyous crowd rose multiple decibels. No matter how hard Sam dug his knuckles into his temples in an attempt to ease the pain, his headache persisted. _Stubborn bastard._

One good thing about this place was that there wasn't a price for admission, so they allowed Sam to just walk right in. The first thing he noticed was the multitude of colored balloons, elaborate signs, and decked-out booths that surrounded him.

Were he not currently enjoying the feeling of a jackhammer drilling through his skull, Sam might have felt a pang of nostalgia at the sight in remembrance of the fairs Jess used to drag him to once upon a time. However, finding someone to give him directions was the priority. All he wanted was to sleep on his lumpy motel bed; there was simply no time to go down memory lane. _Focus, Winchester!_

Regardless, he could certainly have done without all the handholding couples that kept getting his way. Priorities or not, there were some memories that couldn't be held back.

Sam made his way past carts and tents, rides and small children, hoping to catch some lone adult so he could ask his question and get the hell out of Dodge. Every time he thought he spotted someone he could ask, they turned their attention to someone else in conversation. Not wanting to intrude, Sam kept looking.

But his politeness was on quite a short fuse, it seemed, exacerbated by the little boy who ran past Sam, screeching about wanting ice cream, his parents trailing behind him. Sam stopped by a bench and tried to relax while he massaged some of the tension out of his neck. He looked from his vantage point, hoping to find some sort of help desk in the vicinity.

A man on the other side of the lot caught Sam's eye. He was all by himself and desperately trying to had out pamphlets to the passers-by. Nobody seemed willing to converse with the poor guy, which Sam saw as a perfect opening to get answers and leave.

"Thank God." Sam took a couple steps toward the man, but as he did so, a monstrous force nearly ran straight into him. Startled, Sam jumped out of the way then turned to find his attacker. His mouth dropped open in fear at what stood before him.

A tall creature loomed threateningly before him, flaming red hair framing the grotesquely discolored face, upon which evil eyes full of loathing and hatred were set; long-fingered hands curled in a malevolent way as if they wished nothing more than to squeeze the life out of him, and hideous clothes that signify all that is wicked, malicious, and wrong with the world were heaped on top of the vile thing's body.

The abomination's mouth was open wide, surely gearing up for an ear-piercing screech.

Sam, unprepared for attack, staggered backwards, inadvertently tripped on his own feet in his terror and fell backwards, headfirst, into a brightly colored stand advertising cotton candy and big pretzels.

The pain in his head reached its peak, black clouding his vision and ears ringing.

Four words chased Sam into the void, words spoken from the mouth of a child that tightened the ball of panic in Sam's chest.

"Look, Mom! A clown!"

Then Sam's world turned to black.

Hushed tones brought Sam back to awareness, along with the painful throb in his skull. Unwilling to open his eyes and face the bright light of the day, Sam tried instead to listened to the words being spoken somewhere above him.

"Is he okay? Do you think we should call 911?"

"Let's just see if he comes around sometime soon."

"Maybe we should have taken him to the first aid tent…"

"No, they're busy enough dealing with lost kids and scraped knees. Anyway, this guy's so big, he'd probably take up three of their tables. I'm sure they wouldn't have room for him."

Confused, Sam hesitantly opened his eyes. The blinding light that assaulted his vision forced him to screw his eyes shut and moan in agony.

"Look! He's awake!"

Sam opened his eyes into tiny slits in an effort to ease his way into the land of the living. Once his eyes focused, he took in his surroundings. He was lying on a table in the middle of a medium-sized tent, purple and yellow panels of material triangulating to a peak directly above him.

He felt eyes on him, so he turned his gaze downward. His breath caught in his throat as he looked at his visitors in absolute horror.

Three clowns stared down at him curiously as the surrounded him as he lay on the table, undoubtedly waiting to pounce on their vulnerable prey.

Sam tried in vain to shrink back from his enemy, his eyes moving rapidly to search out an escape route, but there was nothing he could do. The clowns were intelligent, closing Sam in on all sides, leaving him trapped and defenseless.

A hopeful thought occurred to him – did the clowns steal his phone? His hands flew to his pockets to grab his cell phone to send his brother a pleading text without the clowns knowledge, but as he did so, one of them leaned in, yellow teeth bared, and asked, "Are you looking for this, sir?" The clown extended one of his devilish hands, which held Sam's cell phone.

Sam's heart rate raced, and his eyes widened in terror, fear ratcheting up the pain in his head to whole new levels.

The clown looked alarmed (_no, not alarmed, evil, nothing but evil)_, and said, "Whoa, man! Calm down!"

Shaking his head, Sam let out a stream of, "No, no, no, no, no! Dean, help me! No, no, no!"

His vision once again became cloudy, and his head filled with fog.

Sam heard one of the dreadful beings hiss, "Who's Dean?" before falling, once again, into oblivion.

The three clowns stared down at their "patient" in utmost confusion.

"What in the hell is this guy's problem?" asked the tallest of the three, Binky Baloo, holding the kid's cell phone in one of his hands.

The fattest clown, Mr. Twinkles, shrugged and said, "Probably just the knock he took to the head. He's disoriented."

The third clown, thin as a post, coughed awkwardly. "Yeah, that was my bad. I think I scared the crap out of him and he just… fell over. Kinda sucks that there was that cotton candy stand in the way."

Mr. Twinkles held up a hand. "Don't worry about it, Patches. I got an idea – didja hear him say something about a 'Dean'? Let's see if there's someone named 'Dean' in the kid's phone and give him a call."

Scrunching his face in thought, Binky Balloo hesitated then said, "Isn't that kind of an invasion of the kid's privacy?"

Mr. Twinkles scoffed and said, "And having some random dude in our tent, on _our_ table, isn't an invasion of _our_ privacy? C'mon. We've gotta get back to work, anyway. The next balloon show is in half an hour."

The three clowns reached an agreement, so Binky Balloo reluctantly flipped through the phone's contact list before stopping at "Dean Cell."

"Thanks for the good time, sweetheart. Call me anytime."

Dean grinned his winning smile at Heather, the luscious blonde he picked up at the county records office three hours ago. She beamed at him and hastily straightened her denim skirt and smoothed her hair.

Heather replied breathlessly, "You can count on that." She winked, grabbed her purse, and walked through door, swinging her hips her the way out.

Dean licked his lips appreciatively. "Damn."

His thoughts were wrenched from his mental replay of the day's festivities by the sound of his cell phone going off.

Checking his watch, he snorted. "Sammy, I'll bet. I guess I took up the room longer than I'd expected."

He strode over to the table where he'd thrown his cell and looked at the display. Sure enough, "Sammy" clashed across the screen.

Pressing 'Accept,' Dean said, "Heya, Sammy. Ready to come back?"

A moment of awkward silence descended across the line until it was finally broken by a strange voice. _"Is this Dean?"_

Alarmed, Dean barked, "Who the hell is this, and why the hell do you have my brother's phone?"

"_S-sorry, um, your brother? He's, uh… Well, here's the thing—" _Dean heard a scuffle in the background and a different voice demand, "_Give me the phone, man." _A second later, that voice came through the line, saying, "_Sorry about that. My coworker's a little flustered. We have your brother, so don't worry. He's—"_

Incensed, Dean yelled, "What do you mean, you have my brother? What did you do?"

"_Whoa, hold up, man! Just… we're at the carnival down on the corner of 9th and Maple. Big purple and yellow tent, middle of the lot. Can you get here, please, and get your brother? We're trying to work, and he's kinda in the way."_

Utterly confused, Dean opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water before managing, "What… I… You're giving him up? Just like that? You don't… want anything?"

"_What we want is your brother off our table. We've got a horde of kids coming in half an hour expecting a balloon show, and your brother can't be here."_

"A balloon show?"

"_Yes. So are you gonna come get him or not?"_

"Um… Yeah. I'll be there in ten minutes… I guess. What's your name again?"

"_Great. Name's Mr. Twinkles. See you in a few." _And the line went dead.

Dean stood in the middle of the room with the phone to his ear for a moment or two, trying to comprehend what just happened. His blood was still rushing past his ears, but his fury was warring with complete bafflement, leaving him with no clue what to do next.

Did someone kidnap his brother? He didn't think so. People don't usually give up their hostages without even a fight or demand for ransom.

So… Why the hell was Sam on their _table?_ A table where there would be a goddamn _balloon show._ At the town _carnival._

Performed by a guy named _Mr. Twinkles._

Dean's cell phone hand hovered in midair for almost a whole minute before he finally spurred himself into action. Whatever was happening, all he knew was that Sam was currently in some tent, lying on a table for some reason, and Dean's gotta get him.

"Uh… yeah." And with that, Dean was out the door.

Dean pulled the Impala into an empty parking space across the street from the carnival, and stared at the crowd with his brow still furrowed in bewilderment. Steeling himself for… something… he opened the door and stepped onto the pavement. Just in case there was a fight in his immediate future, Dean grabbed his gun and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Making his way around the clusters of families, Dean spotted the ghastly purple and yellow tent that _Mr. Twinkles_ described and hurried to the entrance. Rows of benches were set up in a circular pattern facing the middle where Dean could see three clowns, wearing bright red wigs and wore the standard rainbow colored, buttoned get-up, who were standing around a table, upon which lay a man who was entirely too tall to be on lying there.

"_Sam?"_

Dean sprinted past the benches, not caring if he knocked one or two of them over in the process. He skidded to the table, and the three clowns hastily backed away. Sam was lying on the table, hands limply resting by his sides, and his head turned to the right, facing Dean. He looked mostly unscathed, if not a little pale. Dean placed two fingers against the pulse point on Sam's neck and was relieved to feel a steady heartbeat.

Dean looked up to gape at the three clowns who were standing off to the side, watching him warily. _So Sammy was nabbed by clowns, eh? Oh, I'll bet that made his day. _Dean's little brother was deathly afraid of clowns ever since Dean took Sammy to a McDonald's back in the day, and some dude dressed as Ronald McDonald tried to pick up little 4-year-old Sammy, who ran away screaming.

He looked three of them up and down, then decided they weren't much of a threat to his, or Sam's, well being. _If they weren't a threat, why was Sam even here? _Answers were an absolute necessity by this point. "Would one of you please tell me what happened here?"

The short, fat clown standing in the middle spoke up. "I'm Mr. Twinkles, sir, the one you spoke to on the phone." Dean smirked as Mr. Twinkles continued, "My colleague here, Patches," –the tall, gangly clown smiled weakly— "nearly ran into your brother, and – Sam, you said? – Sam kinda… well, he freaked out and fell over. When he did, he pretty much bashed the back of his head against the cotton candy stand right outside the tent. The three of us carried him in here so he could rest up. He woke up a little while and had a panic attack or something. Then he passed out again. And now you're here!"

Glad that his brother at least wasn't in mortal danger, though admittedly feeling a bit flustered, Dean gently probed the back of Sam's head, and sure enough, he found a large goose egg on the back. That had to hurt. Dean lightly slapped his brother on the cheek a few times to rouse him. "Sammy, come on, wake up. That's it."

Sam groaned, and his eyelids fluttered a bit.

"Open your eyes for me, little brother."

His brother mumbled something unintelligible, and his eyes opened into slits. Even with them barely open, Dean could spot the unequally dilated pupils. Sammy definitely had a concussion.

"D'n?"

Smiling down at his brother, Dean said, "Yeah, Sammy. It's me."

"What's… going on?"

Dean chuckled. A concussed Sammy always acted like he'd regressed ten years – a sight Dean always found kind of adorable. Not that he would ever, _ever_, say that out loud. _Ever._

"Apparently you flipped out when you saw a couple clowns, you little wuss. Knocked yourself out."

Sam's eyes just about popped out of his head. "Dean! Dean, the clowns! We gotta get out of here, Dean, hurry!" Looking absolutely petrified, Sam tried to heave himself off the table, but only ended up collapsing back down with his eyes scrunched shut. "Owwww."

"Chill out for a second, dude. The clowns aren't gonna hurt you, okay?"

Sam breathed heavily through his nose as he tried to combat the pain in his head. He looked up at Dean with fear and insecurity bleeding through his voice as he squeaked out, "W-what? What do you mean?"

Taking pity on his obviously freaked out and concussed brother, Dean put rubbed a hand along Sam's arm and said softly, "It's okay, Sam. These are nice clowns. One of them almost ran into you, and you hit your head. They brought you in here, and then called me up."

Dean could see Sam didn't really believe him, so pulled his little brother up slowly, bracing him against Dean's chest, and turned him so he could face the clowns that were still standing awkwardly off to the side.

Sam jerked back into Dean further, but Dean kept him steady. "Easy, Sammy. They're all right. See?"

Mr. Twinkles waved, Patches offered a wobbly smile and shifted his feet, and the third introduced himself as Binky Baloo and said, "Nice to meet you, Sam!"

Shakily, Sam replied, "H-h-hey."

Deciding to be a good big brother and ease Sam's torment, Dean declared, "All right, it's time to go. Let these fine clowns get to their balloon show or whatever." He helped drag his little brother off the table and turned to look at the clowns. "Thanks for your help, guys. Really."

The clowns smiled cordially. Patches stared imploringly at Sam and said, "I'm sorry I frightened you, sir. I didn't mean to nearly run you over like that."

Sam managed a tremulous smile before unsteadily leading the way out of the tent.

Binky Baloo, Patches, and Mr. Twinkles watched the two men take their leave, and then turned to each other, saying at the same time, "That was weird."

They shrugged and went about their work, setting out the balloons, air pumps, and the various joke gadgets they needed to entertain the next group of little kids, though the oddly frightened young man and his spiky-haired brother stayed on their minds the rest of the day.

Sam and Dean got the car with little incident, but Dean couldn't resist quickly tossing a five-dollar bill on some vender's counter and snagging the stuffed clown he saw on display while Sam busy was taking a drink at the water fountain.

After the quick drive back to the motel, Dean got Sam settled into his bed and proceeded to wake him every couple hours to check his concussion.

The next morning, Sam came to awareness appearing far more lucid than he'd been in hours.

Perking up from the chair he had dragged over to the side of Sam's bed, Dean leaned over Sam and opened Sam's eyes further to check the pupils. Despite Sam turning his head left and right to shake off the hand, Dean got a good enough look to deem him to be on the mend.

"You feeling all right?"

Sam coughed lightly. "Yeah. Could do with some Tylenol, though. My head kinda hurts."

"Sure." Dean snagged the bottle of pills off the bedside table and shook a couple onto his hand, handing them to his brother along with a glass of water.

Nodding his appreciation, Sam knocked the meds back followed by a swig of the water. As he did so, Dean finally voiced the question he'd been dying to ask since he got the phone call from Mr. Twinkles. "So what the hell were you doing at that carnival anyway?"

Sam grimaced and huffed a laugh. He stalled for a second as he took the time to set the glass back onto the table, then looked Dean in the eyes. "I was, uh… lost. I got lost. I had a bit of a headache and got turned around when I was leaving the library. I was trying to find someone to ask directions back to the motel, and the carnival was right there, so… I just wasn't expecting to get accosted by a killer clown."

Stunned, all Dean could do was stare at his brother for a moment before bursting into uproarious laughter.

"Lost? Little bro, your skills are so friggin' rusty! You'd think with an Ivy League education, you could maneuver your way around some po-dunk town like this one. Lost? That's just classic!"

Sam shot his brother a death glare as Dean continued cracking up, tears leaking out his eyes in sheer amusement.

But a couple days later, when Sam walked into the room after picking up coffee and breakfast, he couldn't help but chuckle a little when he saw the stuffed clown sitting on his pillow.


End file.
